The short version
Yes — Florida is a valued policy state. Under the Valued Policy Law, s. 627.702, when a building insured against fire suffers a total loss from a covered peril, the insurer must pay the face amount of the policy, regardless of the property's actual value. Both conditions are required: a partial loss, or a loss from an excluded peril, falls outside the law entirely.
The two conditions
| Scenario | Does the Valued Policy Law apply? |
|---|---|
| Total loss of the building from a covered peril | Yes — pay the face amount |
| Partial loss from a covered peril | No |
| Total loss from a peril the policy expressly excludes | No |
Where a loss results from an expressly excluded peril, the Valued Policy Law does not require payment — the peril is not covered, and a statute about how much to pay cannot manufacture coverage that the policy never granted. That is the most commonly missed point about the law, and the exam knows it.
The Valued Policy Law answers how much, never whether. Coverage analysis comes first, every time.
Why the law exists
Ordinary loss settlement asks the adjuster to establish the value of what was lost — actual cash value, replacement cost, depreciation recoverable or not. That machinery works well for a damaged roof and badly for a building that no longer exists, where valuation becomes an argument nobody can win with photographs.
The Valued Policy Law removes the argument for that one case. The insurer wrote a face amount and charged for it; on a total loss from a covered peril, that figure is what gets paid.
What it does not change
How it sits beside the hurricane rules
Florida's hurricane deductible on personal lines residential policies is a percentage of the Coverage A dwelling limit and may generally be applied only once per calendar year, however many hurricanes cause damage. Those rules govern the ordinary case; the Valued Policy Law governs the extreme one. Knowing which regime a fact pattern belongs to is most of the work.
For the statutory clocks on any property claim — the 14-day, 90-day, 1-year and 18-month deadlines — see Florida property claim deadlines.
The Valued Policy Law has been the subject of amendment and litigation, and its application depends on the policy and the facts of the loss. This page explains it in general terms for 6-20 exam study and is not legal advice. Verify current law before relying on it.
Where it is examined
The Valued Policy Law is named in the title of the largest content area on the Florida 6-20 All-Lines Adjuster Examination — Florida Insurance Law (Chapter 626) & Valued Policy Law, 14% of the exam. Questions on it are usually condition-testing rather than definitional: a fact pattern where the loss is total but the peril is excluded, or the peril is covered but the loss is partial, and the correct answer is that the law does not apply.
Two conditions, and the exam will test both
FLAdjusterPrep drills all 10 content areas with 300 exam-style questions and a plain-English explanation on every answer — Florida statutes, loss settlement and claim handling included.